Too many sheep, not enough shepherds

Page 14

Medium Rare

I suspect Aboriginal peoples get most of their news from mainstream newspapers, radio and TV, despite alternatives, such as Aboriginal newspapers and APTN News. However, with a few exceptions, I also suspect most mainstream journalists are ill-prepared, ill-equipped or unwilling to cover most Aboriginal stories.

There's no doubt there's more coverage of Aboriginal issues than ever before. But more doesn't mean better, more intelligent coverage. This isn't news. Most journalists admit they don't cover Aboriginal affairs well. Nor is there much argument why.

Aboriginal issues are too complicated. There's too much to learn and too little time to learn it.

Stories are often in hard-to-reach, remote communities. People are mistrustful, even antagonistic, of reporters. Non-Aboriginal reporters risk accusations of racism by their subjects or charges of bias from their peers.

People are wary of the consequences of speaking out. They tend to let "officials" with the band council speak for them-even when the council is the problem. Besides, reporters only show up when people are already dead or dying.

The "problems" seem overwhelming, even insurmountable. Payoffs-solutions-are rare. Real change almost never happens; there's little satisfaction for reporters. Nor is the "Aboriginal beat" a fast-track to advancement like, say, business or politics. The beat just isn't "sexy." So reporters can't be bothered with Aboriginal stories-unless a white politician is involved.

There's very little original or "enterprise" reporting in this beat. Most journalists, including Aboriginal journalists, rely too much upon safe, "manufactured" news, uncritically accepted from staged news conferences and predictable press releases. Or the stories that are ripped from wire services and repeated without checking the facts. Recent stories are often based on old, flawed stories. As the saying goes, "garbage in, garbage out."

If these assumptions are right, don't expect too much from the mainstream media when the Assembly of First Nations selects a new leader. Why? Aboriginal issues are too complicated. . . yadda yadda, and so on, and so forth.

That's too bad because there's a real story here. Unfortunately, I don't think most reporters will scratch beneath the surface. If there's coverage at all, stories will probably be about personalities rather than issues. Expect superficial stories like why Bob likes Roberta or Phil is better than Matthew.

The real story isn't about any of them. It's about the organization.

For the first time in the AFN's history, there are only three candidates. That, in itself, says volumes. All three candidates are qualified, experienced and passionate. All three bring insights gained from past lives either in government or in Indian politics. All have particular, though very different, styles of leadership. All bring qualities and values that, in almost any other organization, would mean success and accomplishment. In any other organization, that is, except this one.

The AFN is a mess. Most people know or suspect it already. It doesn't matter who becomes national chief. The organization, as it exists now, will blunt hopes and ambitions, ultimately confuse, confound and frustrate.

The AFN has deep internal divisions and is hobbled by petty squabbling. It has no shared focus or vision, no common ideals or principles. It's hamstrung by an unwieldy structure mired in the past, unwilling or unable to change with today's political realities. It's a three-legged "push-me-pull-you," a mythical creature from Doctor Doolittle, going in a dozen directions at the same time, buckling under an expensive, top-heavy bureaucracy.

The AFN has gone from an organization acutely aware of its purpose to an organization more interested in making deals than in ideals. It sold its soul to the devil a long time ago.

The AFN's predecessor, the National Indian Brotherhood, wasn't perfect, but it had values inherited from eople who spent years in the wilderness. They were products of the post-Confederation period marked by numbered treaties, the all-powerful Indian agent, Indians herded onto reserves, their children herded into residential schools.

They overcame grinding poverty, tremendous distances on slow transportation with no travel budgets. They faced pass laws that restricted travel, constant harassment by government officials and police, arrests and detentions. Other laws made it illegal to organize or hire a lawyer. Even when these laws were gone, there were hotels, rooming houses and restaurants that refused to serve, bus and train operators that refused passage.

The NIB was thrown together specifically to challenge the federal government's attempt to extinguish Aboriginal and treaty rights with its 1969 White Paper policy. In essence, the federal government wanted to turn Indigenous territories into municipalities.

Fourteen years later, the NIB transformed itself from an organization of provincial organizations into an organization of chiefs. It was in trouble right from the start.

Under David Ahenakew, AFN's first years were rife with cronyism, nepotism and rumors of shady finances. Eventually, the RCMP investigated. The next national chief, Georges Erasmus, promised to clean house, which he did. However, this was also the time when the AFN lost its moral credibility.

International human rights groups had long condemned Canada for discriminatory sections of the Indian Act that stripped Indian women of their rights for marrying non-status and non-Indians. Instead of doing the right thing, the moral thing, AFN opposed removal of those sections through Bill C-31. Ever since, the AFN has been an aimless organization, seemingly more concerned with the wants of the chiefs than with the welfare of the people.

Today, the government is still trying to turn Indigenous territories into municipalities. The AFN can't galvanize opposition to Ottawa's plan and, worse, it can't igure out why. Perhaps it's because ordinary people know the AFN better than it knows itself.

Despite all, the mainstream news media still calls the AFN "the most-powerful Native organization in Canada." How would they know, when the best questions they can come up with are whether the AFN is ready for a woman leader or which candidate has the approval of the Minister of Indian Affairs?